


Minotaur

by Tatertot_Piglet (Yarking)



Category: Dream SMP- fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Bad Ending, Blood, Blood Drinking, Body Horror, Dehumanization, Gen, Guilt, Horror, Imprisonment, Mental Breakdown, Mental Disintegration, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, One Shot, Prison, Psychological Horror, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:36:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28585089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yarking/pseuds/Tatertot_Piglet
Summary: The second worst thing that Tommy could have done at the community center was to abandon Techno.The first was to let Techno be loyal.
Comments: 34
Kudos: 230





	Minotaur

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Spoilers for today's (1/5/21) stream!  
> 2\. This is fic of characters, not the gamers that play them. Obviously lmao  
> 3\. This is a one shot. I have 2 WIPs and 3 plot bunnies and I CANNOT get sucked into another longer story. Pls. I beg of you. Free me.  
> 4\. This made my betas choke up :DDD

“Your guilt finally got the better of you?”

Tommy would never stop being surprised at how Phil could sound venomous and friendly at the same time, but he managed. Tommy was used to it at this point, though. It had been years since the community center was destroyed, years since he watched his surrogate father scream himself hoarse until his voice was lost. Years since Dream himself had stepped between Tommy and Phil to keep them from coming to blows, threatening to take someone’s only life in exchange for someone’s last life.

It had been years, but Tommy could still see Phil’s steel-sharp eyes burning with hatred over Dream’s shoulder.

“You’re dead to me, Tommy. You are  _ dead  _ to me.”

But it was Phil that seemed to have died, and he died a little more every day. His presence in L’Manberg was a terrible blemish as he walked the streets, pallid and aggrieved. But he was permitted to stay. Dream didn’t believe in guilt by association, and Phil was passive, at worst  _ listless _ , to the other citizens. His loathing of Tommy had abated over the years as well, as if his despair sapped away the strength for even that. Now it was just a smoldering, background noise of a never-quite-healed wound.

The only one Phil could keep his fury for was Dream, and that fight burned through him quickly. He petitioned Dream daily at first, publicly and loudly, vacillating between the impotent rage of a friend and the pitiful grief of a father.

“Let me just see him.” You could hear the words from the street, and everyone pretended they couldn’t. Voices would get quiet when he was mentioned in casual conversation. Sentences became slower, more reluctant.

It was a weight around the city’s neck, a discomfort that eventually grew and evolved into a regret, then a shame. They did not speak of it.

It had been four years since Technoblade stepped into the heart of the community house’s wreckage to stand between Dream and Tommy, and said what everyone knew even then was a lie.

_ “Tommy didn’t do it. I did.” _

It had been four years since Technoblade was taken to the prison. Four years since he had left his cell, since he had felt grass or seen the sun. Four years since his farm fields had been left untended, and Carl was set out to graze the snowy hillside, and his hounds had been either culled or adopted.

Four years since he had fed the Voices.

Four years since he had last seen Phil.

When Dream had finally relented to Phil’s begging, the town gave a collective sigh of relief. Maybe now, they thought,  _ now  _ Phil would be appeased. Phil had never fought the charges against his friend, after all. It was commonly understood that Phil had too much respect for Techno to go against his wishes. Everyone remembered the hollow, resigned reassurances Techno had murmured to him as they parted. Promises that he knew what he was doing, that this was his choice.

_ “It wasn’t meant to be,” he had said, simple and sad and tired. _

But things had not gotten better.

Phil was wasting now that he was allowed to visit his old friend. He looked thinner and more exhausted by the day. The occasional whisper of his name grew to a rumble of rumor as people took note of his greying hair and red-ringed eyes.

And it had been four years for Tommy, who felt the weight in his stomach more than any other.

He could have said something. He could have told Dream that Techno was lying. Tommy may not have known who did it, but he had known that it was completely impossible that Techno did. He could have claimed the destruction was his own doing and undermined that sacrifice. Muddied the waters. Maybe the sentence wouldn’t have been so harsh, split between the two of them. He would have managed. Tommy was, after all, a minor.

But he hadn’t.

It had been nearly five years since he had seen Technoblade, and he never had the chance to thank him.

“I thought… since he was my friend, too…” Tommy trailed off, knowing from Phil’s lazy glare that he didn’t believe Tommy deserved the title.

“Do what you want,” was all he said, and made no effort to ride out to the prison’s grounds any faster. Tommy trailed behind reluctantly.

\--

The prison was heartbreaking.

Tommy sometimes rode out this far to look at it, mostly on the anniversary of his return. The lingering guilt was squirming all day while he celebrated the anniversary, but that night he’d canter out to the hills to stay in the long-abandoned builder’s shack. He thought about how he might break Techno out if given the chance, but he knew that was just an exercise in fantasy. He had never even tried.

Seeing it now, with Phil so casually approaching the entryway, was surreal. He had never come so close to the stonework itself, and when he came so far that he could see the weathering of the brick and the moss growing in the cracks, Tommy remembered his own exile, and of being alone for months that felt like centuries.

Time had already taken its toll on the edifice. What toll could it take on a man?

“Put your torch away,” Phil ordered him curtly. Tommy obeyed as Phil did himself, and they stepped over the bridge of the prison and into the main chambers.

Their footsteps echoed. It was painfully silent, and the air was cold and humid and smelled like standing water. Somewhere, an insect hummed. There were no windows inside, and the only light was the occasional sconce of lava behind glass. Its molten glow extended several feet before being swallowed up by a lightlessness that felt solid.

“Do  _ not  _ stick your hand in.”

Tommy felt the brief urge to ask why, and in  _ what _ , but the quiet in the air felt like it could become hostile if interrupted. Instead, he swallowed.

Phil led him to a broad chamber bisected with a lattice of steel. It was warmer in here. Not humid, but fetid and damp.

“He hears voices, you know,” Phil said suddenly. The wistfulness in his voice made Tommy’s heart clench, and he remembered a time when Phil was his father, when they all were a family. Phil wasn’t looking at him, but instead at the pack he sat on the ground, rooting around for something.

Beyond the cell bars, swallowed up in that solid darkness, something moved. Something stirred, big and bulky, like a horse shifting its weight, or a dragon breathing in. Fur- or hair- dragged along the ground in a soft slither, and a clatter like stone on stone, like the warnings of an avalanche, echoed in the bowels of the prison.

“He was good about not listening to them, before. He told me, once, he said: ‘Phil. Phil, you help. You’re always louder.’” Phil pulled from the bag a parcel wrapped in a bolt of wool. “I know better, though. It was just him. He tried so hard, Tommy. I was so  _ fucking  _ proud of him.”

Tommy was glad for the darkness. He didn’t want to see his dad crying.

Phil unwrapped a jar, its contents too dark for Tommy to discern, but when he unscrewed the lid, the unmistakable stench of old blood, all copper and salt, flooded the room.

The cell wall rattled with a heavy weight bashing hard against it. A roar, the likes of which rooted Tommy to the spot and made him go cold. It sounded resonant in its volume, as if the creature that made it knew how to use the great barrel chest of its body like a percussion instrument. Through the metal shutters, Tommy could see a flash of flesh, something darting in and out of the scant backlight.

Scuttling, and a snarl.

“Techno,” Phil said when the din had quieted down to just the rattling sound of ragged breathing. “Techno, you can’t have it yet. You know what you have to-”

Tommy screamed when another tremendous force smashed against the bars. A long, white bone slipped between the metal, the length cleared almost as long as Tommy’s forearm.

A tusk.

“Phil,” Tommy whispered.

“You have to say it. I know you remember, I know you do.”

The monster in the cage darted out of the dark again, but after thrusting its head against the cell bars once, twice, it lingered in the dim light. A single pale-red eye locked on Tommy through the spaces in the bars, and the creature made a noise like a sick, bellowing stallion.

“Fhe…”

Phil was silent, still, holding the jar to his chest, brow drawn.

“Fhe..Fehee”

“Almost, buddy. You’re almost there.”

“Fh- phii. Phiil.  _ Phiiil _ .”

“There you go,” Phil said, hushed and gentle. He bent and set the jar on the ground, and carefully rolled it across the uneven ground. Tommy could hear it roll as it passed out of the range of the light, and jumped when the jar popped and smashed somewhere in the cell. His stomach turned when he heard the snorting and lapping of a wild beast, of his friend and big brother.

“What happened to him?” Tommy asked. His voice cracked as his throat grew tight and hot, horrified tears burned at the edge of his eyes. “That’s-... what happened?!”

Phil breathed in deeply and let out a long, even sigh over the sound of teeth gnawing on glass shards. “Dream gave him plenty of food, but he wasn’t getting  _ fed _ .”


End file.
